Originally Posted by
Not_a_boffin
Significantly more than one action.
Inexpensive compared to others - anyone who understands where the money goes is pretty clear the carriers are a long way from the biggest pot.
Once again, complete lack of understanding of "escorts" vs task group. What pray, are we deploying these escorts around the globe to escort? They do "stuff". Is that "stuff" more or less effective than a task group?
Boffin - as we all know and the RN are happy to keep telling us all RN and RFA vessels not in overhaul or training are deployed on a wide variety of missions in an enormous variety of locations.
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-an...ity/operations currently lists the areas and
https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-an...-activity/news lists latest news which covers vessels in Arctic, S Georgia, the West Indies, the Gulf, the Med , E Scotland.......................
These are almost all single ship deployments and presumably are considered important to the national security no?
The RN has no spare ships sitting around - therefore if you form a Carrier Task Force with 2 x T45's, 2 x T23's and 2 RFA's those vessels are no longer available to cover the areas were they are currently deployed - you have a great deal of force , but you only have it in one location. Those escorts are protecting a carrier in the N Atlantic - they can't be in the Gulf at the same time, nor in the Med... the argument about the RN carriers is not that they're not nice to have but that in a Navy which was stretched to breaking point before their arrival something which we currently feel is necessary has to give to protect them.